Karnataka HC reduces life sentence in POCSO case; cites 'lack of justification' for maximum sentence

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has reduced the sentence of an accused in a POCSO Act case from life imprisonment to 10 years, emphasizing the need for valid reasons while imposing the maximum sentence.

The accused, a 27-year-old man from Chikkamagaluru, had his appeal partially allowed by a division bench comprising Justices Sreenivas Harish Kumar and CM Joshi. The court, however, increased his fine from Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000.

The case involved the accused befriending and repeatedly sexually assaulting a minor girl in his neighborhood in June 2016. The girl's mother filed a complaint in December 2016 after discovering that her daughter was pregnant.

A DNA test confirmed that the accused was the biological father. The police registered an FIR and filed a charge sheet following their investigation.

On June 11, 2018, a special court in Chikkamagaluru, the district headquarters, sentenced the accused to life imprisonment under Section 6 of the POCSO Act and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on him after the having been found guilty of criminal intimidation.

The accused challenged the verdict in the High Court, arguing that the girl's age had not been proven by proper documents.

After reviewing the case, the division bench noted that the oral testimony suggested the girl's consent, although this was not legally relevant given her actual age of 12 at the time of the incident.

The court observed that this indication of consent precluded the imposition of the maximum penalty under Section 6 of the POCSO Act.

She concluded that the special court had not provided sufficient reasons to justify the maximum life sentence.

According to the law in force on the date of the crime, Section 6 of the POCSO Act provided for a minimum punishment of 10 years rigorous imprisonment and a maximum of life imprisonment.

The court ruled that the imposition of the maximum sentence required valid reasons, which were absent from the special court's judgment. Accordingly, the court, in its recent order, modified the sentence to 10 years' imprisonment.